Page 1 of Shared By the Werebears
1
GOLDIE
Isighed as I looked out of the plate glass window of my diner.
Goldie’s Diner, (yes, I named it after myself) sits on the far end of Main Street in the little town of Hidden Hollow. Outside it was a beautiful day with a crisp blue sky and pale Autumn sunshine that made the scarlet, gold, and orange leaves shimmer like a dragon’s hoard.
It was gorgeous but not surprising—here in my hometown of Hidden Hollow, it’s Autumn about nine months out of the year. And not just Autumn, but the peak of leaf season when everything is perfect and it’s just cold enough to wear your favorite sweater without feeling hot or uncomfortable but not so cold that your nose starts to run and you’re miserable.
In April, we get a month of Spring with short rain showers, green shoots unfurling, and flowers blooming everywhere. In August, we have a month of summer with temperatures high enough to make you want to dive into the local lake to cool off. In December, we have one perfect month of feathery white snow just in time for Christmas, Winter Solstice, Hanukah—or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate at that time of year. Then in January, it’s back to leaf season and perfect Autumn weather.
But how is this possible, you may ask? Well, Hidden Hollow is located inside a magical bubble that keeps out anyone who doesn’t have some kind of magic in their blood. It was founded way back around the time of the Salem Witch trials to offer safe haven to magic users but of course, it attracts Creatures too.
By Creatures, I mean what most people would call “monsters.” We have orcs and dragons, satyrs and centaurs, minotaurs and vampires, and even one very lonely kraken. (Though it’s his own fault he’s lonely—he’s always so grumpy.)
We have Were-creatures too—folks who have an animal side and a human side. But all that about the animal coming out only on the full moon is ridiculous. Most Weres can switch whenever they want to—though if they stay in their animal form too long, they risk getting stuck in it for good.
That happened to a werewolf I knew. Poor guy lost his mate and didn’t want to have to remember how sad he was. So he stayed in his wolf form until there wasn’t enough of his human form to come back to. I still feed him scraps from the backdoor of the diner when he comes around sometimes. He seems happier as a wolf, so I don’t know—maybe it’s for the best.
I don’t have an animal side myself, but Idohave some pretty specific needs, which was why I was sighing sadly on this fine Fall morning. See, I’m a kitchen witch—meaning a lot of my power has to do with feeding and nourishing people—but I’m also half Succubus. (That’s a female sex demon in case you didn’t know.)
Thanks to my Succubus side, I don’t just want sex—Ineedit. And more than that—Icraveit. Most of the time I can go to the Mortal Realm and find what I need, but lately I was getting sick and tired of human men. They’re all so rude and entitled and pushy. I mean the bar is so low it’s in Hell, you know? All I want is a nice guy who’s down for a night of no-strings attached nooky, but it’s hard to find someone without an attitude. I tend to be picky about who I share myself with—just because I need sex doesn’t mean I don’t have standards.
So for the past several months, I’d been “helping” myself. I have a little cabin out in the woods that I call my “Lust Hut.” It’s filled with all kinds of toys and I have an enchanted, self-thrusting dildo that gets the job done. Well,sortof. It gives me orgasms and keeps the empty feeling at bay, but it doesn’t have a soul, so I can’t really get nourishment from it—just fleeting satisfaction that doesn’t really last.
A lot of people think that a Succubus siphons energy from whatever male she sleeps with and harms him by draining his life force. That’s only partially true. Idoneed sensual and sexual energy and Idodraw it from the man I’m with but it doesn’t harm him to “feed” me that way—not unless he does it over and over and over again. That’s why it’s better to have two men instead of one—that way neither of them can be “drained” completely. I can take a little from each of them and they’ll both feel fine when we’re done.
The energy I get from having sex feeds the Succubus part of my soul and makes me feel happy and fulfilled. But it had been alooongtime since I’d been with a man, so I was running pretty near empty and it was showing. I just?—
The bell at the front of the diner jingled, interrupting my train of thought and I heard a familiar voice.
“Hey, Goldie—how about some coffee to go?”
It was Willow—the latest addition to our town. She came here through a magical doorway, running from a Hell Hound and an abusive ex. Luckily, she found a guardian gargoyle (who was a lawn ornament before she woke him up) to keep her safe. He took care of the hound and the ex and now the two of them are Heartmates and living their best lives right here in Hidden Hollow.
Kael, the gargoyle in question, was right behind Willow. The two of them had opened up a magical supply shop right next to the Lost Lamb Bakery, where I get all my desserts and pastries. I was glad they were there—we’d been needing a supply shop for ages. I get tired of having to go to the forest or out into the Mortal Realm to gather all my owningredients whenever I want to cast a spell and I know a lot of other witches and warlocks feel the same way.
“Just coffee?” I asked, heading behind the counter to where my coffee machine was already perking. I serve only the finest magical brew with beans that have been enchanted to taste extra delicious—you can’t get a better cup of Joe anywhere in Hidden Hollow than at my diner.
“We’re going to stop in at The Lost Lamb bakery and get some bear claws to go with it,” Willow explained. “That way we can say good morning to Sarah and Celia too.”
Sarah was another fairly new resident of Hidden Hollow. Like Willow, she’d come through a magical doorway that appeared when she needed it most. She and her Heartmate, an Orc named Rath, are regular customers.
Celia, my other friend, actually owns The Lost Lamb and Sarah helps her run it—along with Celia’s Heartmate, Malik, the demon who came out of the magical portrait she inherited. The two of them are happy as can be, even though Celia thought for sure she was too old to settle down.
I couldn’t help sighing again when I thought of it—it seemed like most everyone in Hidden Hollow had found their Heartmate. Everyone but me.
But that’s not just because I’m picky, it’s because as a half-Succubus, I need more than one guy to keep me satisfied. If I only have one, he won’t be able to keep up with my needs. And he’ll end up feeling tired all the time—like he’s got a low-grade case of the flu. I don’t wish that drained feeling—the feeling I was having now myself—on anyone, especially not a man I love.
So I can’t settle down unless I can find at leasttwoguys who are willing to share me and sadly, that’s not something that’s very common. Most men get so territorial and angry when you ask them to share—it’s almost impossible to keep them both happy because they get so jealous of each other.
“Hey, why the long face?” Willow asked, as I poured her coffee intoa magical to-go cup which was spelled not to burn her hands and to keep the coffee hot down to the last drop.
“Are you well, Goldie?” Kael asked, echoing his Heartmate’s sentiment. He was almost seven feet tall and his huge, feathery wings stuck up from his broad shoulders but he had them folded neatly against his back, so they didn’t sweep anything off the counter, thank the Goddess.
“I’m okay—just lonely,” I admitted as I slid the coffee cup across the counter to Willow. “I haven’t found a Heartmate—or Heartmates—yet, so it looks like I’m going to have to make a trip to the Human World to deal with my cravings tonight.”
I didn’t mind telling Willow that because we’ve gotten pretty close in the short time she’s been here. I even let her use my Lust Hut when she needed to work a complicated spell to rescue Kael from Hell, where he ended up when he was trying to defend her. By using my hut, she’d pretty much seen the Succubus side of me, so I knew she wouldn’t be shocked or offended by anything I had to say.
